Farmers’ agitation against the new farm laws entered Day 7 on Wednesday with no signs of the protest slackening any time soon. With each passing day, more farmer bodies and trade unions are pledging their support to the agitation.
But one major farmer organisation has stayed away from what many experts have described as the most historic farmer agitation in post-Independent India – the farmers’ wing of the RSS, the Bhartiya Kisan Sangh (BKS).
To understand where the BKS stands, News18 spoke to Mohini Mohan Mishra, the national secretary of the organisation, who called the ongoing protests “politically motivated” and said that the protesters should respond to the overtures of the central government.
Edited excerpts:
Does the BKS support the ongoing farmer agitation against the farm laws?
We were with the farmers on the issue of farm bills, in which we also think there is a scope to improve. But we withdrew when politicians got into it, when the movement became violent. I again would like to tell these political forces to stay out of farmers’ fight. We farmers will fight our own battles.
So you think the farmers are being misled by political parties?
I will not use that word. But it is also true that for the past two to three years, certain political forces were trying to mobilise farmers against the government and they seem to have succeeded somewhat this time. These people want to build political capital by stoking anger and unrest among farmers from Punjab.
But farmers in several other states like Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh have also been protesting against the farm bills.
We know who these people are. We knew who is the so-called farmer leader in Maharashtra and we know who was behind the farmer unrest in Mandsaur (in Madhya Pradesh). Believe me, these people are not interested in solving problems of the farmers.
What are the concerns you find in the farm bills? Have you talked to the government about them?
We went from village to village talking to farmers when this law was being framed to understand the broad areas of concerns. We held several such meetings with other farmer leaders also from June to July and came up with some suggestions for the government.
Our first recommendation to the government was to create a portal for buyers so that farmers who wish to sell their produce outside the mandis know who they are selling to. We had demanded that bank guarantees be taken from the buyers and a clause be inserted in the law giving no more than 48 hours for the buyers to make the necessary payments failing which their bank guarantees should be seized and legal action be taken against them.
We also recommended that all taxes, which the farmers have to pay in order to sell their produce at the mandis, be waived off. The government did partially agree to some of our recommendations. For instance, they waived off the taxes and created a pan-India market, and in this respect these farm laws are quite good. They also agreed to set a 72-hour time limit instead of the 48 that we had recommended.
The issue is more nuanced that what some political leaders who are running the show would like us to believe. They aren’t sure what they want except to occupy the road.
One of their demands is for the government to insert a clause explicitly stating that below MSP private players will not be allowed to buy farmers’ produce.
I don’t know who is suggesting this. The biggest problem for the farmers right now is that they are not getting the MSP at their local mandis. Now mandis are governed by the respective states. Outside mandis, it is the central government’s responsibility to ensure that the farmers get at least the MSP from their buyers. These are two separate things which cannot be addressed in these recently passed farm laws.
A separate legislation is required, such as the GST, in which both the Centre and the states sit down and take responsibility to ensure that the farmers get their dues.
What in your opinion should be done to resolve the deadlock?
I think that the protesters should realise that if the government is taking two steps forward, they should also walk two steps ahead.
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